Boone: BOONE-BELL, #1

By Frederic W. Burr

Private investigator Carl Boone finds himself pulled into the sexual undercurrent flowing through American culture in two unrelated cases.

 

His office is on solid footing, with Marianne Bell now working as his office manager and assistant. When the wife of a local publisher seeks his help in an extortion case, he is captivated by her extraordinary beauty, only to learn that beauty is not always what it seems.

 

At the same time, local attorney Clive Townsend, a significant source of business for Boone's office, seeks his help. A friend of Townsend's fourteen-year-old daughter faces a charge of second degree murder. His investigation develops in fits and starts, branching off into unexpected and, in Boone's case, dangerous areas. What looked like a case involving drug-fueled sex between two teenagers becomes something else entirely.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frederic W. Burr
• Release date: Sep 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9798223684589

Frederic W. Burr

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Fred enlisted in the Navy at the age of seventeen, and retired in the rank of Commander in the surface warfare community. He is a graduate of the University of Louisville and the Albany Law School of Union University. Retiring from the private practice of law in upstate New York, Pennsylvania and Kentucky after thirty-six years, he considers himself a fully recovered attorney. Fred and his wife Donna (who also writes) make their home in Kentucky.

Book preview

ONE

IT WAS LATE SPRING. Boone was sitting behind his desk, having a cup of coffee. He had completed his report on a runaway teen girl he had tracked down for her worried parents and was trying to concentrate on a front-page story in the Monday morning edition of the Albany Times-Union. It had something to do with a Troy police detective embezzling union funds. But the soft breezes coming in through the open window, and the noises from Swan Street traffic below kept distracting him. He could also hear the muffled sound of Marianne talking on the phone, even though the door between their offices was closed.

He thought about asking the corporate landlord for a solid door between the two spaces. After all, if he could hear her, she, and anyone else on her side, could hear his discussions with clients. The landlord might kick, after already having subdivided the empty office next to his so Boone could bring on Marianne as his office manager. But he wasn't worried about that. The onsite manager for the building, Carl Murphy, who went by Murf, owed Boone to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars in alimony payments.

Two months earlier, Murf had come to him seeking advice. He suspected his ex-wife had a live-in lover, but he couldn't prove it. If he could, under the terms of his divorce agreement, he could discontinue paying her alimony, which amounted to a third of his take-home pay. It took Boone ten days to come back with a series of photographs and bills from the ex-wife's trash proving ongoing residence of her boyfriend. Instead of billing the manager, Boone agreed to take it out ‘in trade’ to Murf's relief.

Two sharp knocks on the interconnecting door interrupted his reading. Marianne opened the door and stood inside the doorway. He gave up on the paper and laid it on his desk. Looking at her, he said, Yes?

Although she looked better to him than he had ever seen her, he kept such thoughts to himself. Six months earlier, she was as gaunt as a concentration camp survivor. She had just escaped from kidnappers working on behalf of the FBI, but only after her captors had beaten her to within an inch of her life. After her release from the hospital, the forces behind her kidnapping renewed their efforts to locate her.

Boone became her protector (his ex-wife always accused him of having a white knight complex). To neutralize the threats against her, they had to bring on an armed private security team. Afterwards, it took months of therapy for her to recover from the ordeal.

Mr. Boone, that lawyer, Clive Townsend, just called, she announced. He's on his way over, and he’ll be here any minute. I get he helped both of us with the FBI, but why does he have to act like you're . . . she hesitated and smiled before finishing, his personal dick?

Stifling a laugh at her use of the slang term for detective, Boone shook his head before responding. He's like that, he said. But let me remind you, he sends us a good deal of work, and always pays our bill, and promptly.

I know, she said, but . . .

Townsend's throwing open the hall door as he burst into Boone's side of the office interrupted the conversation. She looked at the lawyer, then at Boone, and retreated to her desk, closing the door behind her.

As always, Townsend's attire was immaculate. He was wearing a lightweight gray pinstripe, and a well-pressed lilac blue dress shirt with a navy and red silk rep tie. But with his buzz-cut hair, a nose that had been broken more than once, cauliflower ears and hands like a dockworker, no one would mistake him for the shy, retiring type.

Boone leaned back in his chair and put his boots up on the corner of the desk. You wanted something?

Yeah, Townsend replied. I got this client, . . .

And it would appear, so do I, Boone said, pointing at Townsend.

Townsend grimaced, shook his head, and said, Hold it, will you?

Holding.

My client is probably going to be accused of murdering her boyfriend late last night.

Boone remembered a breaking news story on the morning news, something about a developer’s son dying, and a suspect in custody, but nothing else.

Her current boyfriend? he asked.

No. Well, I don't know. Could be her ex-boyfriend. I'll have to check on that.

Boone snorted. If he's dead, regardless of who killed him, it's probably safe to say he's her ex-boyfriend. So how did he die?

She allegedly jammed a letter opener into his left femoral artery.

Ouch! That'll leave a mark. How'd he let her get that close to him? I mean with a letter opener?

The ME says there's lipstick on his baby maker.

So, he was naked?

Naked enough.

Somehow, I’m getting the impression he wasn’t her ex-boyfriend. No charge for that clue. Let's cut to the chase. What do you want me to do?

I want you to do what you do best, Townsend said. Investigate. You know, nose around, run it down.

You don't need to get so technical, Boone said. Do the police like her for it?

Oh yeah. And the news media, fucking jackals they are, they do as well. Seems the recently deceased was the eighteen-year-old son of Abe Creekson.

Creekson, the developer?

Calling him a developer is like saying Moses was just dropping off a memo. And it’s not just that. He’s a donor to the state GOP.

Really? I thought Republicans were an endangered species in Albany.

Most New York Republicans are just moderate Democrats in disguise. But Creekson has always been a contrary sort.

What about your client?

She comes from a middle-class family. Both her parents work, and they live in the Legends subdivision. In Bethlehem.

Boone knew that area well. Less expensive homes on the outskirts of the more well-off areas around New Scotland Avenue.

Where is she now? he asked.

They’re putting her on a psych hold at Albany Medical Center. When they tried to question her last night, she was incoherent.

So, she hasn’t been arrested, or Mirandized.

Correct.

But you're not convinced that she’s guilty?

Townsend sighed. My client is a friend of my younger daughter.

Samantha?

Yeah. Sam. She swears Gerry would never do such a thing.

And Sam is an excellent judge of character, is she?

She’s beyond her years at fourteen. I've met Geraldine, and I have to say she doesn't seem the type.

How old is your client? I mean, if she was engaged in, . . . you know. Fourteen seems young for that, doesn't it?

Geraldine is sixteen.

Sixteen? That still seems pretty young to me.

Townsend again shook his head. You need to get with the times, Carl. So, you willing to get into this? You don't seem all that busy.

Boone took his boots off of the corner of his desk and sat up. Sure. What are friends for? Send me over what you have, and I'll get right on it.

Townsend reached into his inner suit-coat pocket and extracted several folded sheets of paper. Laying them on Boone's desk, he said, Here you go. That’s enough to get you started. Crime scene photos, along with a check for your usual retainer, will be here some time after lunch.

It always impressed Boone how quickly Townsend could get crime scene photos, which any other defense counsel would not see until well along in discovery. He suspected the man had some serious juice with the forensic techs in the Albany PD.

Townsend stood up. And you should try to dress better, he said. Might make your clients take you more seriously.

Boone looked down at his navy T-shirt from Katz's Deli in New York City, with ‘Send a salami to your boy in the Army’ emblazoned across the front in bright yellow script. What's wrong with this?

Townsend made a dismissive gesture with one hand as he left, without closing the door behind him.

BOONE LOOKED over Townsend’s sheets. Marianne worked on the end of the month financials for the office. And fumed. As much as she enjoyed working with Boone, she was unhappy with being a mere employee, working on financial statements, scheduling appointments, and answering the phone. She had an MBA from Northeastern, for Pete’s sake!

Marianne didn’t need the job from a financial perspective. She wanted work that challenged her. And she wanted to own something, not just work at it. She wanted to be a partner and thought ‘Boone and Bell’ had a nice ring to it.

But, as always, that train of thought led her to feel guilty, as though she were ungrateful. When she was at her absolute weakest, Boone was there to protect her while she recovered from her injuries and guard her family as well.

When he offered her the job, her parents were overjoyed. Their daughter would have gainful employment with a trustworthy employer who would keep her safe. More than once, her father told her to be grateful for the life she had. And she was.

But she still wanted more.

THAT AFTERNOON, a courier dropped off a large manila envelope from the law firm of Cooper/Townsend addressed to ‘Carl Boone, Albany’s Finest Shamus.’ Boone chuckled at Townsend’s offbeat sense of humor.

Inside, under a check payable to Carl M. Boone, LLC for one thousand dollars, were a dozen crime scene photographs of the late David Creekson. Like always, the pictures themselves were brutal in their brightly lit, tack-sharp details, sparing nothing and no one.

Geraldine appeared to be sitting on the side of a bed, wearing only panties. Looking closely at the shots of her face, loosely framed by her disheveled blonde hair, Boone could almost count the individual grains of eyeliner streaking down her cheeks. Her eyes were widened in shock. The pupils themselves were mere pinpoints centered in hazel irises. Her mouth was open as if she were about to say something. The fingertips of one hand rested on the point of her delicate chin. For someone supposedly in the immediate proximity of a sliced femoral artery, there was a barely a trace of blood spatter on her breasts, and none on her hands or arms.

In contrast, David Creekson’s body, lying in an unmade bed, wearing only a T-shirt, looked like a study of a young man’s body by Michelangelo. His thighs and calves appeared well muscled, with little to no fat. His flaccid penis was tucked almost modestly around the scrotal sac. But for the handle of a letter opener sticking out of the inside of the young man’s left thigh, and the large stain of dark red blood seeping into the bedclothes under his legs, he could have been modeling for an advanced course in life drawing. The absence of any defensive wounds puzzled Boone. But even more baffling was the boy’s apparent state of relaxation while being stabbed deeply into his leg.

From Townsend’s materials, he knew the murder took place in the Creekson home. From what he could see in the photographs, it was probably in the victim’s bedroom. Boone would love an opportunity to look around the room where the crime took place. But since he was working for the accused’s defense attorney, that would prove difficult to impossible. Regardless, he didn’t think Geraldine Bronson was good for the murder. None of this seemed to hang together.

He picked up Townsend’s materials, leaving the photographs on his desk, and walked into Marianne’s side of the office. Handing her the sheets, he said, See what you can find out about these people, can you?

She brightened as she reached for the pages. Thank you! These month-end financials are boring the hell out of me.

TWO

THAT EVENING BOONE SAT down in the living room after his microwaved dinner to look over the case. After placing Townsend’s printout, the crime scene photographs, and the results of Marianne’s online searches in separate stacks on his coffee table, he went through each one, reading and analyzing carefully. The goal was to develop an overview of the case. He thought better when he started fresh.

Marianne’s results helped him make sense of the photographs. David Creekson was no stranger to illicit drugs, according to his supposedly sealed juvenile records. Depending on what he was on, he may not have even realized someone had stabbed him in the leg. And Geraldine’s pinpoint pupils, and incoherence during questioning, suggested she might have taken some type of opioid. David’s post-mortem and Geraldine’s lab work should provide some answers.

David was a junior in Christian Brothers Academy, a